A & J Restaurant

Rude staff, food just ok not worth treatment. It is a different type of dim sum so maybe it is ok to be more expensive but I think Joe’s noodle house across street has better options.

This restaurant is worth the drive from DC. Recommended by some of my Chinese friends, the food here reminds me of food that I could only get in Flushing or some parts of San Francisco. Each dish definitely represents a more northern Chinese flavor. The congee (小米粥) reminds me of the home cooked meals my mom used to make. The beef wrap (牛肉卷饼) is a definite must order! Its combination of savory meat and bread is perfect! For my vegetarian friends, the veggie noodle soup is a solid choice (阳春面). If you’re not looking for something too heavy, I enjoyed the lighter taste of the veggie and egg dumpling (花素蒸饺). There are so many other dishes that I still want to try, so I am looking forward to coming back sometime soon!

Have been coming here for almost a decade now. Still really good and the food quality has not gone down one bit. Really good authentic chinese food. They have hand made wide noodles with a great chewy texture which my family prefers, but also thin noodes which are also delicious. Ordering is very simple and there is a nice variety of entrees (noodle soups and rice dishes) and sides. There are also Chinese breakfast items, which I don’t generally get, but taste great. Their pot sticks are really good. Their xiao long bao is so-​so in my opinion. Green Onion pancake is really good. All side dishes are great. All their noodle dishes are excellent. I love coming here when i’m in the Rockville area. Definitely worth the visit.
Don’t expect awesome service though. It’s not bad, but they are generally in a rush most of the time and lines can get long. No credit card either … that’s my main gripe, but a small one.

This place was pretty great. The fried pork dumplings were fantastic. The fried beef bun was very good as well.
It’s a little hole in the wall with cheap prices.
They were very busy and service a little slow, but acceptable.
They’ll bring you a menu and pencil for you to circle what you want.
The Xiao long bao were not very good — don’t waste your money on these. The dough was very, very thick and there was no soup inside! The flavor was missing. They should take these guys off the menu — it does them a disservice versus the other food that is really great.

Pleasantly surprised by this little gem that serves delicious beef noodle soup! The hong sao broth is tastier, but the handmade noodles are worth visiting this restaurant for. It’s pretty small and packed on the weekends. They serve Taiwanese breakfast too like sao bing with Chinese donut, rice roll, soybean milk, etc.
Service is quick, and the food is decent. I can’t wait to go back and get their beef noodle soup again!

Love, love, love this place. I have since moved away, but made it a point to eat there every day when I last did research at the Library of Congress. I even made it a point to get a boatload of takeout for my drive back to Ohio.
The service can throw the uninitiated. It is a hustling place and at times you have to sit at a table with people you don’t know if nothing else is available. Fear not, you will spend your time stuffing your face and ignoring them.
There are so many wonderful things they do with bean curd there. I always get the vegetarian delight and the pressed bean curd with mustard greens. The scallion pancake is awesome too.

This spot is cheap and yummy. And the dishes are served really fast. We had the Peking beef burrito, the salad with noodles, the pancake, the beef soup, the spicy dumplings, rice with pork and eggs (best), and Peking noodles. Are are really really good.

If you want authentic Taiwanese food and on a budget then A&J is the spot you must try. I always order the spicy beef noodle soup. It has the perfect kick to it and the beef is tender as if they simmered all day in broth. Another dish I like to order is spicy wontons, these little wontons are so flavorful and tasty. Also, the braise pork and egg over rice is also a popular dish. It’s simple and delicious. Last but not least, the beef wraps are a must!!! It’s basically beef, sliced cucumbers, and hoisin sauce rolled in a flakey but soft wrap — ugh, I can’t stop thinking about it…
Overall, you can’t go wrong with A&J, the only con is, it’s CASH ONLY! Just remember to stop by an ATM before you eat here.

After eating at most restaurants, your stomach is full but your wallet is empty. A&J is awesome because you leave with both a full stomach and a full wallet. Definite winner.
If you look Chinese, they will likely speak to you in Chinese. If you can’t speak the language, don’t sweat it, though they do banter a bit more when speaking Chinese and just seem to communicate the bare minimum when conversing in English. The last time I went, they mocked me for not ordering any vegetables!!! Sometimes, I wonder if they’re secretly friends with my parents …
Having spent half a decade overseas in China and growing up with Taiwanese parents, this kind of food is absolute comfort for me and what I eat a lot. That means two things whenever I eat out at a restaurant that makes that kind of food — I usually enjoy it, but at the same time I still pick out smaller things that they could’ve done better because I’ve eaten all of these food items so many times in my life. A brief food review, compiling a bunch of the things that my friends and I have ordered thus far:
— Beef noodle soup 牛肉面 (regular and spicy): The beef is pretty tender, which is not always the case when order beef noodle soup at restaurants in the states. If I’m going to nitpick, I’ve had broths with richer flavors, but that’s a really unimportant point. They do a really good job making this and it’s perfect for a cold day or evening meal when you want something to warm you up. You could easily order this alone for a simple dinner stop.
— Fried dumplings 锅贴: Simple but great. These are a bit different from your typical dumpling and are a shoutout to the restaurant’s Taiwanese side. They are way more meat-​heavy than a Chinese dumpling, rectangle shaped, and always pan-​fried. I pretty much always order them when I’m here, but they can be fried a bit crispier to take them to the next level.
— Peanut noodles 担担面: These are pretty good, exactly what you’d imagine peanut butter and soy sauce added to noodles to taste like — not the Sichuan-​style dish that is loaded with hot chili oil and broth-​based! Definitely a lighter entrée choice and should be accompanied by some other dishes, like those fried dumplings I just talked about.
— Scallion Pancake 葱油饼: Has anyone in the history of ever objected to fried carbs? Certainly not me. They do a recent scallion pancake here, though the dish doesn’t quite reach the flaky interior and super crispy exterior that marks a great pancake. This is one of those dishes that is reasonably easy to make pretty well but really hard to make excellently — they fall into the pretty well group. Everybody loves them nonetheless, myself included. Because, fried carbs.
— Fried turnip puff 楼卜丝饼: I give them credit for trying but I didn’t love them here. The outside was a bit flour-​y and not very crispy (noticing a theme?). For the dumplings and the scallion pancake, it wasn’t really a big problem because the flavor of the dishes alone makes it enjoyable, but turnip puffs have so few ingredients that there’s nothing to hide behind when the texture goes slightly awry. This is probably why most restaurants opt for the turnip cake (楼卜糕) instead, because that’s an easier dish to make and has more flavor built in. Maybe that was a one-​time thing, but there’s enough other stuff on the menu that I probably won’t bother trying it again.

5 stars, hands down! We have been coming to A&J for the past 6 years now. I enjoyed my food experience here every time. Service is great. All the waiter ladies have been working here forever! Good sign of excellent management. If you come during weekend dinner time, you most likely have to wait in line. But the lines do go by pretty fast.
My recommendations are based on my years of eating here:
COLD dishes: tofu with thousand year egg, dry bean curd with mustard green and edamame
NOODLE dishes (they make noodles here!): peanut sauce noodle, spicy beef noodle soup, pork and mustard green noodle soup, spicy wonton
HOT dishes: pan fried pork dumplings, rice topped with minced pork with egg, turnip pastry, fried pork chop with rice
Another reason that I love A&J so much is because of their small dishes menu. During our visits, we typically order about 4 – 5 dishes for the 2 of us. We get to taste different things and our bills are never more than $ 30 for each visit. Oh, also remember to bring cash. A&J is a cash-​only place; no credit card is accepted.

When I’m in the mood for delicious and reasonably priced authentic Chinese cuisine, I head to A & J Restaurant. The smoked chicken, Xiao Long Bao and spicy beef noodle soup are absolutely ah-​mazing. It’s a quaint, low-​key restaurant with spectacular service and friendly wait staff. Love it!

Authentic chinese food! Very tasty and quite affordable. So far the dishes I’ve had are smoked chicken, pork dumplings, crispy pork, short ribs and the spicy beef noodle soup. (not all in one visit) Everything was bomb! I always got my orders to go, so I cant say much about the service. But the food is always good.
Bring Cash!

I wish there’s an A & J closer to home. I haven’t had the (spicy braised) beef noodle soup this good in a long time!
We arrived around 4:45 pm on Saturday, so we got lucky not having to wait which I’ve heard can be really bad. The décor/​ambiance is inviting — not too formal and not too shabby. The price is reasonable and the selections are, let me just say I’d like to order every single dish on the menu! If you can read Chinese (sorry couldn’t find one in English), just look at the (snack) order form in the attached photo and zoom in. So enticing! The first 2 items are both spicy beef noodle soups, the second adds beef tendon to the mix. They are hot and spicy so you should try it before the summer comes, lest you’d be sweating twice as much!
You have a choice of thin or thick noodles. The thick one is more of northern China style. Personally I like the thin noodle better.
The kids ordered Xiao Long Bao (Shanghai steamed dumplings), and they loved it.
Bring lots of cash because the restaurant doesn’t take credit card. I will surely be back to check off more items on the order form!

A & J’s Chinese Restaurant serves northern style dim sum dishes and other dishes. I’ve been coming to A & J’s since I was a student at the School of Music and Stonebranch School of Art.
I always order my usual — Bean Curd Skin, Mustard Greens, and Soybeans; Clear Beef Noodle Soup, Smoked Chicken, and Pan Fried Pork Dumplings. I’d say that they make the best tasting Bean Curd Skin, Mustard Greens, and Soybeans. I like how it doesn’t contain hot chili peppers. The Clear Beef Noodle Soup consists of thin handmade noodles, stewed beef meat, parsley, and scallions in a clear, light, and tasty broth. Sometimes I feel that they overcook the beef but I like how it’s still tender. The Smoked Chicken consisted of sliced bone in chicken that was smoked. I liked how the smoky taste. I’d be careful of small bones though. The Pan Fried Pork Dumplings consisted of 8 long rectangular shaped pork, cabbage, and scallion dumplings. I liked how it was just the right amount of dough.
My other favorites include Scallion Pancake and Thick Noodles with Ground Pork, Cucumbers, and Bean Paste.

Food is still good, but I heard something that bugged me: another table complained about a dish they ordered and wanted it returned, the waitress said «you took a bite and we can’t take it back.» Well duh, how would you know it’s no good without tasting it? So the waitress kept going and said «just don’t order it next time.» I rolled my eyes.
I understand service levels in China and Taiwan aren’t up to our standards, and restaurants aren’t interested in pleasing their patrons the way say a McDonald’s or Red Robin would, but boy you would think «when in Rome…», nope, these people still have the China mentality. But again, as long as you’re aware of what to expect, the food is good.

This is probably one of the better Chinese restaurants in the Rockville area. I love their beef noodle soups (牛肉麵）because the beef is soft – not too chewy. Also, their minced ground pork rice is one of the best in the area. I also usually order a couple of small dishes such as the pig ears and cold shredded tofu. For dessert I get the red bean porridge (kind of like a sweet red bean oatmeal).
Main pros:
–Authentic chinese dim sum (see above for recommendations)
–Good for chinese brunch: try the soymilk and «yoh tiao» (fried bread) and «fan twan» (rice ball with dried pork stuffed in it)
–Cheap!
–Fast service (waitresses are constantly on their feet moving about)
Cons:
–Only accepts cash
–Long wait on weekends (super packed because it is such a popular restaurant!)

Went for dinner on a Sunday and it was mostly empty, which was fine by me. You order by circling items on the paper menu, which I thought was kind of different and quite easy. Favorite thing I ordered: garlic/​chili cucumbers! Get like three orders of this stuff! So cheap and so delicious. My boyfriend hates cucumbers and even he loved it!
Also ordered: Pan fried pork bun (delicious but nothing special), spicy beef soup with wide noodles (broth too fatty for me and not enough flavor), thousand layer cake (literally no flavor so only order if you have something delicious to dip in), and dan dan noodles (wide noodles were difficult to keep the sauce on so it was kind of bland).
Overall, I was impressed with how much food you could get for the price. Next time, I think I’ll order the thin noodles because the wide noodles were just too hard to eat. I’ll give this one another try because I saw a lot of other people ordering other things that looked amazing.

Went for lunch around 1pm on a Tuesday! It was moderately busy so we were able to get seated right away. Everything is affordable, you cannot beat the price! Real authentic Chinese food is what you should expect :) Staff was helpful and friendly. Plus, the service was really quick!!! We were in and out in no time. CASH ONLY!
My sister and I shared the spicy beef noodle soup (asked for the wide noodles), cucumber salad, and the braised pork on rice with braised egg. Wow, everything was SO good!
Spicy beef noodle soup’s broth was amazing! It really hit the spot especially on a cold day. The broth didn’t taste like the typical beef broth that you normally get. It was so rich, refreshing and not too salty! Beef was SO tender and juicy. The wide noodles were great; the perfect texture that went well with the soup and beef! Cucumber salad was amazing; perfectly cold and picked, it went well with the rice that came with the braised pork :). It was a small side dish and cheap! Braised pork with rice & egg was another favorite! Honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of the pork, but it did go well with the pickled veggies that came along with the rice and egg.
Overall, I really enjoyed my experience! I will definitely go back soon especially for the spicy beef noodle soup! Total for 2 only came out to $ 16 something!

Dear Lord what have we done to deserve so many good Chinese restaurants? What? Oh it’s because of the Chinese people? Well. Ok.
Of course this is a Taiwanese place not Chinese but I needed a comedic segue. The food is super good and authentic. They had that plum drink I like that apparently is rarely enjoyed by white folks. Whatever yo. It’s amazing.
I didn’t feel like getting a noodle soup because it was too hot outside so I got a pork and rice dish. Also that scallion pancake. Damn that shit was dope.
This place is cash only so keep that in mind.

I stumbled upon this little restaurant when I was Unilocaling for Asian restaurants in Rockville, MD. There are a few A&J restaurants in SoCal, so I was surprised to find this place all the way in MD. This one is actually slightly better than the one I tried back in CA. The restaurant is quite small, so it can get crowded easily. I ended up ordering Pan Fried Pork Dumplings; Pan Fried Beef Bun; Noodle w/​Ground Pork, Bean Sprouts, and Shredded Cucumbers; Spicy Beef Noodle Soup; and Chinese Style Fried Pork Chop Noodle Soup.
Pan Fried Pork Dumplings: The outside was crispy, while the inside remained very juicy. It was slightly oily since it was pan fried. Get this if you like potstickers!
Pan Fried Beef Bun: It wasn’t that great. The bun had a sticky consistency, and it absorbed so much oil. The beef inside was tasty, but the oiliness made it very unappetizing. I wouldn’t recommend this.
Noodle w/​Ground Pork, Bean Sprouts, and Shredded Cucumbers: I ordered it with skinny noodles. The ground pork sauce was soo tasty, and it wasn’t salty at all. I liked how it wasn’t too saucy and it wasn’t too dry. I even wanted to order another one after I finished.
Spicy Beef Noodle Soup: The broth was really savory, and wasn’t spicy at all. Whenever I order beef noodle soup from other restaurants, the beef is usually tough and chewy. However, this place had really tender beef. If you want something soupy and savory, then you should get this!
Overall, this place has great Chinese food! Their food is more Taiwanese-​like. Their service is actually better than other Asian restaurants back in CA, which is nice. I’ll be coming back if I’m craving some Chinese food and/​or noodles!